America’s Sports Car: How Corvette Captured Our Veterans’ Hearts
Source: Hiconsumption.com
Ah! The Chevy Corvette: what an iconic automobile it is… having the honor of being America’s Sports Car. My first memory of this vehicle was seeing my high school’s Army JROTC instructor drive up in his shiny, bright yellow mustard convertible Corvette, roaring up the block with the loudest V-8 engine that rattles ear drums, and parking it in the teacher’s lot. Then, his imposing stature exits the vehicle, all decked out in full olive green Army dress uniform adorned with ribbons, medals and cords, a noire black Army beret, the coolest Aviator sunglasses money can buy and the shiniest dress shoes you would think were spit-shined. He looks to see if any of his cadets are nearby to unload his deep, spacious trunk full of military “stuff” and low and behold a half dozen or so cadets appear out of nowhere climbing over each other grabbing the heaviest boxes they can carry… full on machismo!
Source: Wikiwand.com
This is the image that has stuck with me over the years whenever I hear and see Corvettes driven down highways loud and fast by veterans who just happen to be retired. It is an image that is not only engrained in me but in American culture and one that has stood the test of time for Chevrolet’s brand image. How did the love for this sports car all begin and why has the military embraced it so? What does this mean for marketing and what can marketers learn from this case study? Let me help answer these questions, but first a little bit of history.
A Brief History
The American military and automobile manufacturers have had an amazing relationship building military equipment and vehicles together since World War I. During the Great War, Ford Motor Company became known for building the first middle class of American workers who created the Model T for both military and civilian use, but it was only after World War II that automobiles made for leisure took off to become a mainstay of American culture. General Motor’s Chevrolet division designer Harley Earl observed veterans returning home with cheap European sports cars designed for high horse power and eye-catching aesthetics. The American hero that he was, he knew American innovation could compete in this new class of sports car so he convinced GM to design a revolutionary, new coupe convertible and American soap box derby creator Myron Scott named the brand Corvette after the small but fast Navy warship. The 1953 Chevrolet Corvette C1 was born and the rest is history.
Source: History of Chevrolet Corvette| Chevy (Automobile Documentary), World Car Documentary
America’s Sports Car
It began with American veterans’ love affair with European models with exotic names like Jaguar and Mercedes, and they brought them home after the war. These sports cars were made for handling and flexibility unlike anything seen in the States. To top it off, these models had topless roofs, smooth curves and the appeal of a James Bond car before Casino Royale made its novel debut in 1953. Something had to be done and Chevrolet’s “Stylemaster” was not going to do it.
“Opel” was going to do it. Opel was Chevrolet’s German counterpart commandeered by GM to penetrate deep into… European markets. In her namesake, “Project Opel” was born out of yearning desire of GM designer Harley Earl who had previously designed the Buick LeSabre, a heavy muscle car. He was joined by fellow patriots Ed Cole, Bob McLean Earl, Charles Wilson, Thomas Keating and Myron Scott in his odyssey to design the Opel sports car better known to our enemies as “femme fatale voiture.”
Harley Earl. Source: Hobbycarcorvettes.net
What Harley Earl yearned for but seemed elusive to him at the time was the body and the composition of this “voiture” that would escort veterans and sports car lovers back to Ithaca from the island of Ogygia. He was the modern Pygmalion who took upon himself all of Odysseus’ trials. When winter of ‘51 arrived he and GM’s engineers founded the Parts Fabrication group in Detroit to play with plastics to shape bodies… for R&D purposes of course. It was a long, restless winter; just them and their plastic models. Cabin fever was at an all time high and sleepless nights were all too common on their singular mission of fabricating that dream car. Their odyssey had taken them straight into the man-eating caves between Scylla and Charybdis where no man returns until hearing the song of the sirens.
Spring of ‘52 arrived as a bare-breasted siren ready to devour their… spirits with her fatal song, but it wasn’t her song that tempted them. It was her body. They were presented with the naked body of Alembic I by an alchemist, Earl Ebers, who also brokered fabriquer bodies under the label Naugutuck Chemical. He shared the story of how he met a Prometheus of sorts who goes by the name Bill Tritt from Costa Mesa, who mastered the art of fiberglass molding from boating, and applied it to the body of his first car, the Brooks Boxer. It was a collaboration with his Air Force veteran friend Major Ken Brooks who wanted a desirable body for his hot rod. The Alembic I was only Bill’s second model designed to perfection and she was sitting there on his floor for Harley Earl to inspect.
Bill Tritt designing the fiberglass body for Alembic I at his Glasspar studio. Source: Hemmings.com
“This heavenly” car ”appeared to be real; you’d surely suppose her alive and ready to move, if modesty didn’t preclude it; art was concealed by art to a rare degree.” Harley’s “marvelling soul was inflamed with desire for a semblance of body. Again and again his hands moved over his work to explore it.” It was at this fortuitous moment Harley’s dream, their dream for Opel became reality. “In the course of time he successfully carved an amazingly skilful voiture in ivory, white as snow, an image of perfect feminine beauty – and fell in love with his own creation.” - adapted from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
1952 Ex-122 Concept Car debuts in 1953 as “Corvette” at GM Motorama, Source: Corvettes.nl
Harley and his team inspired by the beauty of fabriquer fiberglass delivered Opel as their aesthetically designed Ex-122 Concept Car, branded and renamed Corvette by Myron Scott. Corvette was displayed at the 1953 Motorama in New York City to much fanfare drawing 45,000 visitors on opening day and 1.4 million that year. She drew the attention of many in the crowd including military veterans thirsty for an American beauty to match their 1953 Playboy cover girl, Marilyn Monroe. Also in attendance were young sports car drivers and world class engineers. Chevrolet produced 300 of these models, of which only 183 were sold being deemed risqué for American sensibilities and anticlimactic for sports car enthusiasts.
Marilyn Monroe Performing for the Troops. Source: Poster for sale on Amazon.com
Of course, there can be no Odyssey without the Iliad, and there can be no Odysseus without the Achilles. One such man was engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov who was so roused by the sight of Corvette at Motorama that he applied to join Chevrolet’s ranks at GM. Zora was a Belgian born Russian man, French Air Force veteran, and parts supplier of the US military through his ARDUN Mechanical Corporation. He reveled in speed while enjoying the thrill of road racing in the heyday of Berlin’s autobahn being a man of impeccable taste in cars rivaling only James Bond himself. He was a pioneer in Ford’s “Ardun” valve V-8 engines and later raced Porsche’s 550 Spyder to 13th place in 1955. Joining GM was one thing, having them reengineer Corvette into America’s sports car was another.
Zora Arkus-Duntov in front of C2 Corvette. Source: Corvsport.com
Zora Arkus-Duntuv was not a man of shallow words, but a man of action and he convinced Ed Cole that Corvette needed to be racing against the best European race cars in 24 Hours of Le Mans to gain the attention of young sports car drivers. He topped land speed records of over 150 mph at Daytona Beach, he learned from experimenting with the 1957 Corvette SS Race Car that rear mounted engines exposed drivers to less heat, and became Chevrolet’s director of high performance eventually engineering the first profitable Corvette C2, the second generation Corvette that is most recognized and revisited to this day. The prototypal car of this generation was a slimmed down version of Bill Mitchell’s Corvette Stingray design, reengineered by Zora to compete with Shelby’s Cobra. Zora Arkus-Duntav’s C2 Corvette sales fucked Shelby Cobras’ and Mustangs’ between ‘63 and ‘67 the way Achilles fucked Hector at Troy. As a result, Zora became the first chief engineer at GM in 1967 and has earned the nickname as “the Father of Corvette.”
Zora’s 1963 C2 Corvette Grand Sport Coupe Source: Revsinstitute.org
As with any large organization that has many heads with huge egos, GM was no exception. Throughout his tenure at GM, Zora championed engineering marvels that would take Corvette into the third generation. Zora engineered several sick mid-engine designs that he worked tirelessly on, but were later shot down by commercial heads with a sole focus on the bottom line, not innovation and performance racing. When Zora faced mandatory retirement in 1975, it was a bittersweet moment for the company and Zora. He never saw his dream car manufactured for the masses. Since then, many mid-engine Corvette prototypes raced into the concept car graveyard but renewed interest and popular demand saw the first mid-engine Corvette mass produced as the eighth generation C8, the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
2020 Corvette Stingray mid-engine display. Source: Extremetech.com
Built For Veterans By Veterans
Veterans were not only Corvette’s biggest fans; they were also the builders that assembled these performance machines in major factories throughout the US. Factories that gave the characteristic look and feel of rust belt America popped up in places like Flint, Michigan and St. Louis, Missouri. By 1981, the need for mass production propagated another major move for Corvette to the current Bowling Green Assembly Plant in Kentucky. At this Corvette plant, there is a veteran service wall for employees and family members that honors their proud service to our nation (Chevrolet.com). Upon visiting this site retired General Cody once said, “We have the best military in the world, and the only reason America has the greatest military in the world is because it’s backed up by the greatest workers in the world that make things.”
The production output of Corvette could only be accomplished by automotive trade workers that have the military expertise necessary to work as a cohesive unit. The numbers speaks for themselves; after every major launch of a next-generation Corvette there was adequate man power to ensure supply met surging demand.
Source: Extremetech.com
Marketing a Corvette
Corvette has tremendous brand equity that has been built over the years with a loyal following of both veterans and sports car enthusiasts. Brand loyalty cannot be discounted with each new generation of Corvettes that are launched because these same people come back to buy their second, third, fourth, fifth, N’th Corvette. What is important to note here is that by having these loyal followers qualified as existing accounts, account based marketing initiatives can be executed efficiently. Producing highly targeted and tailored advertisements can save Corvette millions of dollars in total marketing spend because the brand loyalty is already there.
Additionally, having a pulse on what the buyer wants in their sports car is the most important thing a marketer must do. Zora Arkus-Duntuv, although not a marketer, had the buyer’s intuition because he was a sports car driver in his own right, knew exactly what performance drivers were yearning for and were ready to shell out big bucks to drive. He was able to use his market research and design thinking to reengineer the C2 Corvette for performance. However, in the case of the mid-engine Corvette, Zora was ahead of his time and GM was not fully committed to competing with Lamborghini and other high-end European sports car makers. To their credit, GM market tested the mid-engine Pontiac Fiero between ‘84-'88 but it had dwindling sales and they were spooked at the prospect of launching a mid-engine Corvette. Finally, after decades of waiting and actually listening to the market, GM pulled the trigger on the 2020 C8 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
Now the real challenge that Corvette has been facing since its inception and after each next-generation is getting new drivers to drive their sports car, and choose the American Sports Car over its competitors. This is an ongoing problem because the market is saturated with sports cars, super cars, even hyper cars that are being raced at 24 Hours of Le Mans and elsewhere. Corvette now has to define who they are to a newer audience that are not only veterans and sports car enthusiasts, but new drivers that do not know the history behind this iconic car. Are they going to be like high-end European manufacturers and shrink their marketing budget to the exclusive few that can afford them? Or are they going to capture the imagination of every driver, young and old, of all races, creeds and genders, male, female, LGBTQ: a real reflection of who America is today? This will be the defining moment for Corvette to continue being America’s Sports Car well into the future.
2022 C8 Corvette Z06 Zora Source: Corvetteblogger.com